by Mary Balogh
Would she freeze Lizzie out? He had no idea. But he felt a certain relief to know that she would have the chance at least of a long-distance friendship—and that she would know that she had not been as thoroughly disliked as she had thought.
“Thank you,” he said.
“And now you may escort Mama up to her room,” she said, “and I will come up too for my bonnet. I am in need of that walk.”
Seven
Wren was making preparations to go to Staffordshire. She had not intended it to be so soon. She loved being in the country during springtime, but, more important this year, she had set herself the task of finding a husband. That project was at an end, unsuccessfully as it turned out, but not every enterprise could succeed. That was one lesson she had learned from her uncle. Failure must be taken in one’s stride just as success must be. If one kept a cool, sensible head and learned from one’s mistakes, the successes would ultimately outweigh the failures. There was always something new and something challenging to look forward to. It was a bit hard to believe at the moment, it was true, for her feelings had been bruised and she had found herself for the last day or two a little broody and even a little weepy. But through this experience she had learned that for her, success was to be looked for alone and in impersonal things, most notably in her business. For that at least, she could be grateful.
A change of scenery would invigorate her and do her an immensity of good, she had decided. She would keep herself busy doing what she loved doing and did well. Being there would enable her to speak directly with Philip Croft, the longtime manager, and everyone else. She would be able to get out into the workshops and marvel anew at the almost magical process of creating vases and jugs and tumblers and figurines out of something as airy and fragile as glass. She would be able to watch the glassblowers, the glass cutters, the engravers, and the painters and know herself in the uplifting company of true artists. She always found it a humbling experience. Whenever she was there, she wondered how she could ever bear to stay away so long.
She was in her room packing the trunk and valise she had had brought up to her dressing room. It was something she always liked to do for herself despite Maude’s protests. But perhaps she was not going to be able to finish. She could hear the arrival of a carriage on the terrace below her window. Who—? No one ever came visiting. Surely it was not him. She did not look through the window, lest he look up and see her. She had no intention of receiving him, though it would not be the best of good manners to turn him away when he had come so far in the rain. If it was him, that was. But there was no one else. If only he had waited until tomorrow, she would have been gone and would not have had to worry about being rude.
It was Maude who tapped on her door and opened it at Wren’s bidding. “Lady Overfield wishes to know if you are at home to visitors, Miss Wren,” she said, looking disapprovingly at the open trunk and valise and shaking her head in exasperation.
“Lady Overfield? Is she alone?” Wren asked.
“Yes, she is,” Maude said. “The earl did not come with her, unless he is stooped down and hiding in the carriage.”
How very foolish to feel a pang of disappointment. But . . . his sister? Whatever could she want? Had he not told her? “Well, if you said you would come to see if I am home, as I daresay you did,” she said, “she will know that indeed I am here. You had better show her up to the drawing room, Maude, and tell her I will be down in a moment.”
“I already have,” Maude said. “You could hardly refuse to see her, could you?”
And she would have done the same for the earl, Wren supposed. “Send a tea tray to the drawing room, will you, please?” she asked.
“Already done,” her maid said before disappearing.
Wren looked down at herself. She was wearing an old dress, a faded gray one she had worn years ago and resurrected recently to serve for half mourning. She brushed her hands over it. It would have to do. So would her hair. She checked it in the mirror. It had been twisted into a simple knot at the back of her head but was at least reasonably tidy. She glanced at the veil hanging over the back of a chair but decided against it. The lady had seen her in all her purple-faced glory, after all. She went downstairs with reluctant feet.
Lady Overfield was standing by one of the windows, looking out, though she turned as soon as Wren entered the room. She was very unlike her brother. Wren looked for some resemblance but could find none. She did not have his dark and formidable good looks or his rather formal aristocratic bearing. Her main claim to beauty was an amiable face that seemed to smile even in repose.
Wren did not greet the lady or move toward her after she had closed the door. She did not smile. She had issued no invitation, after all, and she could guess the purpose of this visit.
“I do hope,” Lady Overfield said, “I have not come at a very inconvenient time. If I have, you must say so and I will take myself off without further ado.”
“Not at all,” Wren said. “I was just packing. Please come and sit down.” Good manners had reasserted themselves.
“Packing?” Lady Overfield seated herself on the chair Wren had indicated.
“I have a home in Staffordshire near the glassworks,” Wren explained as she sat opposite her guest. “It is possible to run the business from a distance since I have a competent manager who has been there for years, but I like to spend time there occasionally. I like to see for myself what is happening, to take an active part in plans and decisions for future developments, to get out into the workshop itself, partly to show my workers that I appreciate their skills. I also marvel at their talent and dedication to producing perfection. I have spent some of my happiest days there. Glassware can be so very lovely, and the emphasis with us has always been upon producing what is truly beautiful rather than just what is utilitarian and quickly made and easily sold.” She was on the defensive again. She could hear the edge of hostility in her voice
“How very wonderful you make it sound,” Lady Overfield said. “Do you realize what a rarity you are among women, Miss Heyden?”
Was she being mocked? Wren was not sure. Yet the lady’s manner seemed warm and sincere. Perhaps she was better at dissembling than Wren was. “I do realize it,” she said. “I think of myself as being one of the most fortunate of women.”
A maid brought in the tea tray at that moment, and there was a pause while Wren poured and they each sat back with their tea and a ginger biscuit.
“Your long journey here was quite unnecessary, Lady Overfield,” Wren said, dunking her biscuit in her tea, which was probably not a genteel thing to do. “You have come to warn me off. Lord Riverdale did not inform you, I daresay, that we said goodbye a couple of days ago and that I said it first. Goodbye does not mean farewell until we meet again; it means we will never meet again unless by chance. Since I live a reclusive existence here in the country at least eight miles from Brambledean and spend weeks of each year elsewhere, that chance is slim to none. He is quite safe from me—and the lure of my money.” Ah. So much for good manners. She stopped, breathless.
Lady Overfield returned her cup to its saucer before replying. “He did tell us,” she said. “He seemed a little sad about it, and that made my mother and me a little sad too. But my coming here has nothing to do with that, Miss Heyden. Your dealings with Alex are a matter entirely between the two of you.”
Sad? He had been sad? “Why did you come, then?” Wren asked.
“It seemed the polite thing to do to return your call,” Lady Overfield said. She held up a staying hand before Wren could reply. “No. I do not believe social platitudes will work with you, will they? And why should they? Why should not truth be told? I sensed when we met the day before yesterday that you were perhaps in need of a friend. I know you have been alone since losing your aunt and uncle very close to each other last year. And I know what it feels like to be alone.”
“After you were widowed?”
Wren asked.
Lady Overfield hesitated. “It was not after his death that I felt alone,” she said, “but during. He was— Well, he was an abuser, Miss Heyden, a fact I felt compelled to keep secret, even from my family—for a variety of reasons, which I shall not go into. I did have family. I also had acquaintances galore. We were very active socially. But I felt alone and friendless at the heart of it all. I am not suggesting there is anything in common between your experience of aloneness and mine except in that one thing. And forgive me if my assumption is offensive to you. You may have numerous very close friends. Or you may not want any. You certainly may not want me as a friend.”
Wren stared at her, speechless, and without warning she was catapulted back to childhood and the constant yearning that had made it unbearable. She could remember more than once curling up into a ball in the corner of her room behind the bed, sobbing inconsolably, rocking back and forth, longing and longing for the friends of her own age she could never have. Or even one friend. Just one. Was it too much to ask? But it had been a rhetorical question, for the answer was always yes. While she had heard the shouts and laughter of other children outdoors or in other rooms, she had always remained alone, sometimes behind a locked door—locked from the other side. There had been only one child, a mere infant . . .
She had long ago suppressed any yearning for friends. She had had a safe, nurturing home instead and the unconditional love of two people who must surely have been angels in human disguise, she had sometimes thought a little fancifully. But hearing her friendless state put into words now made her need feel raw again. Her first instinct was to be defensive, for there seemed something a little shameful about having no friends. Yet this elegant, poised, smiling lady, who looked as though she could never have suffered deeply in her life despite what she had said about her husband, knew what it was like to feel all alone in the world and had been willing to share with a near stranger what must have seemed like her shame at the time.
“Of course,” Lady Overfield continued when Wren said nothing, “I do not live at Brambledean or ever expect to do so. But if Alex makes it his home, as he fully intends, I daresay I will spend some time there. We have always been a close family, and he has been particularly good to me. I cannot offer any very close friendship, perhaps, but I do offer what I can. There are always letters with which to keep up an acquaintance. I am a champion letter writer.”
“I am forever busy with business correspondence,” Wren said stiffly.
The lady was smiling again. “Shall I tell you how Alex was particularly good to me?” she asked. “Or would you rather never hear his name again?”
“How?” Wren asked unwillingly, noticing the second half of her biscuit still untouched on her saucer and taking a bite out of it—there was no tea left in which to dip it.
“When Desmond—my husband—first hurt me very badly,” Lady Overfield told her, “I fled home to Riddings Park. But he came after me, and my father, very conscious of the fact that I had married him of my own free will and was therefore his property and possession, to do with as he willed, insisted that I return home with him. In my father’s defense, Desmond was abject with apologies and assurances that nothing like it would ever happen again. When I was even more badly hurt later—my arm was broken among other things—and fled home again, my father had already passed away. When Desmond came for me, Alex punched him in the face and sent him on his way. He returned with a magistrate, but Alex stood his ground and refused to give me up. I have lived with him and my mother ever since. Desmond died the year after. My brother is a gentle man of even temper, but no one should ever make the mistake of believing him to be a weak man. Now, do tell me about your aunt. I know your uncle was a successful businessman and that he must have encouraged your interest in the business and even, presumably, trained you to carry it on after him. But what about your aunt, whom you loved so dearly?”
How could Lady Overfield have suffered as she had without showing any outer sign of it now? How had she recovered? But had she? She seemed very poised and very amiable, but one could not know from such a brief acquaintance what went on deep inside another person. And why had the lady confided something so deeply personal to Wren? Because she wanted to be her friend? Was it possible? It would be very easy to shed tears, Wren thought, blinking away the possibility. Lady Overfield had chosen to confide in her.
“She was plump and placid and reveled in her role as wife and surrogate mother,” Wren said, “and never showed the slightest interest in the business beyond an admiration for some of the lovelier pieces that were presented for her approval. She never raised her voice, never lost her temper, never said an unkind word about anyone in my hearing. But she was as tough as old leather when aroused. When—” She stopped abruptly. “Well. There was one time . . .”
She was relieved when Lady Overfield filled the gap. “I wish I could have known her,” she said. “Did she educate you or did you have a governess?”
And somehow the correct half hour for a visit slipped by unnoticed and then another while they talked on a number of subjects without any seeming effort on either of their parts. She was talking, Wren realized, and even smiling. She was warming to the first offer of friendship she had ever received. It was not until Lady Overfield glanced at the clock on the mantel, looked startled, and said it was high time she took her leave and let Miss Heyden return to her packing that Wren realized how much she had been enjoying herself.
“How time has flown,” Wren said, setting the tray aside and getting to her feet. “I do thank you for coming. I hope the rain has not made the road treacherous.”
“It is not the sort of heavy downpour that turns a road to mud very quickly,” Lady Overfield said, glancing through the window as she stood too. She did not immediately turn to the door. She frowned, hesitated, and then turned to look fully at Wren. She drew breath to speak, seemed to change her mind, shook her head, and then smiled. “Miss Heyden, I came to say something and then got lost in the pleasure of conversing with you. But I must deliver the speech I prepared so carefully and rehearsed so diligently in the carriage, or I shall kick myself in the shins all the way home. Alex told us that he invited you to come to London sometime this spring as my mother’s guest at Westcott House. I know you refused, and I fully respect that. However, I do want to say two things. First, if your refusal was in part because you felt we would not welcome your company, you were quite wrong. Both my mother and I are very sociable beings and it would be a genuine pleasure to entertain you. Second, if you were to choose, for whatever reason, to come to town after all, we would be more than delighted to show you about London, which is certainly worth a visit, though perhaps it cannot compete with a glassworks. I would very much enjoy a tour of that one of these days, by the way. We would be delighted too to accompany you to any of the myriad entertainments of the Season that might take your fancy. We would be equally willing to leave you at home whenever you chose not to accompany us. There would be no pressure whatsoever upon you to do anything you did not want to do or to meet anyone you did not want to meet. There. That is what I came to say. My mother wished to accompany me this afternoon, I ought to add, but I suggested that you might feel overwhelmed if we both turned up on your doorstep. Ah, one more thing.” She opened her reticule and drew out a card, which she handed to Wren. “It has the London address. I hope you will write to me there regardless. I promise to write back.”
“Thank you.” Wren looked down at the card. “I shall . . . write.” She was not at all sure she would. But then she was not sure she would not. She had never before been offered friendship, even at a distance. She would never go to London, of course, but . . . she could have a friend. Perhaps see her here occasionally. Perhaps invite her to Staffordshire at some time in the future. Yes, she would write. It would be the polite thing to do if nothing else. “I will walk downstairs with you.”
By the time she arrived back in her room, Maude had
finished packing both her trunk and her valise. Wren looked at the card in her hand and slipped it down the inside edge of the valise. “I was not sure everything was going to fit,” she said. “You are a far neater packer than I, Maude. Thank you.”
“You always give me twice the work,” her maid grumbled. “First I have to haul out everything you have packed, and then I have to do the job properly.”
Wren laughed and went to stand by the window. She gazed out and wondered if the rain would delay her own journey tomorrow. But after a few moments it was no longer the rain she saw. It was the Earl of Riverdale pummeling Lady Overfield’s husband in the face and refusing to give her up, even though the law was against him and arrived on his doorstep in the form of a magistrate to tell him so.
My brother is a gentle man of even temper, but no one should ever make the mistake of believing him to be a weak man.
And he was the brother of her friend.
My friend. She whispered the words against the glass.
• • •
Alexander left for London with his mother and sister the day after Wren left for Staffordshire. He had discussed with his steward what could and would be done with the limited resources he had at his disposal. It was not much, but they could only do the best they could and hope for a decent harvest and a little more money to invest next year. The house and park must wait, though Alexander had every intention of returning there to live for the summer.
In the meanwhile he went to London because it was his duty to take his seat in the House of Lords. And because his mother and Elizabeth really ought to have his protection and escort while they were in town. They did not have to lease a house this year. Westcott House on South Audley Street, town house of the earls for the past few generations, was not an entailed property. Last year Anna had ended up owner of the London residence. But she had never wanted to keep everything for herself. She had tried to divide her fortune into four parts, three-quarters of it to be divided among her three dispossessed half siblings. And she had tried to give Westcott House to Alexander. They had finally settled upon his living there whenever he was in town, though she had informed him that her will already stated that the house was to be his and his descendants’ after her time. He hoped it would be after his time too—Anna was four years younger than he.